Not hangin’ so well in Hangtown

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Times aren’t exactly spritely in Hangtown — otherwise known as Placerville — these days. Crime-wise, that is.

Seven people have been locked into the town’s El Dorado County Jail recently on murder charges, most notably Tylar Marie Witt, a 14-year-old girl accused of killing her mother. Internationally despised kidnap-rape suspect Phillip Craig Garrido is in there, too, with his wife, Nancy, on charges of keeping El Dorado County girl Jaycee Dugard as a sex slave outside Antioch for 18 years.

And now this week comes word that Annie Le, a Union Mine High School valedictorian considered to be the brightest light to come out of the county for many years, was found slain in a laboratory building at Yale University, where she was earning a doctorate in pharmacology. Most of the national press has been reporting that she was from Placerville, which is wrong. Placerville is just the nearest real city to Le’s actual family home in unincorporated El Dorado — but accuracy or not, it’s Placerville that got the headlines.

“It’s pretty unusual, all these things happening lately — not what we expect around here,” said Todd Cunningham, chief of the Diamond Springs-El Dorado Fire Department. His fire station is just a few blocks from Union Mine High, where his daughter went to school with Le. “We have a very good quality of life up here.”

Cunningham transplanted from the Bay Area years ago, and he said he believes crime isn’t much lower or higher in the mountains where Placerville is than it is in the cities. But when bad news comes in bunches in a places dominated more by slopes and pines than houses, it stands out.

The bartender known as Robin at the Liar’s Bench on Placerville’s Main Street was less introspective as she pulled brews for the press in town this week to cover the latest Garrido court hearing.

“Too much killing, too much craziness,” she said, clucking her tongue. “This is usually a really quiet place.”

Actually, historically speaking, Placerville’s lore is dripping, so to speak, with crime and death.

Out front of the Liar’s Bench is the California landmark “Hangman’s Tree,” where scofflaws had their necks stretched during the Gold Rush, giving the town its nickname. The tree’s not actually there, but its roots supposedly are. And across the street is the old-timey Cary House hotel, reputedly haunted by a bevy of ghosts including “Stan,” a desk clerk who legend says got himself stabbed to death for making a pass at the wrong gal.

Headlines may come and go, but legend endures. Hangtown now has a few new ones to add to the ledger.